Excerpted from my Pirates of Time manuscript. Erin and Sophie have traveled 300 years back in time. Disguised as boys, they have joined the crew of Swiftfoot Darkrunner’s pseudo-pirate ship Velocity. Their second day aboard,

they are assigned to the awful task of re-caulking the deck.

The hours crawled by. Caulking was hard work indeed. Despite Mr. Rumple’s declaration that Erin had “mastered” caulk removal, both she and Sophie struggled mightily with almost every piece of the rough, tar-soaked oakum they tore out and replaced. And miles of it still lay in rows between the boards before them. One of the most difficult part of the task was that much of the work had to be done on their knees protected by no more than the denim of the cut-off jeans.
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